


redefinitions (of home and courage)

by liminal



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-06
Updated: 2015-06-06
Packaged: 2018-04-03 05:42:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4089106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liminal/pseuds/liminal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"Real courage lies not in unthinking heroism, but in the very act of overcoming fear and despair" - Michael Jones</i>
</p><p>Brooklyn calls Steve and Bucky home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	redefinitions (of home and courage)

They spend so long chasing each other, chasing rumours and uncertain half-glances, that they end up back where they started.

Brooklyn is their siren call, bringing them both home.

*

Steve gives up on Brooklyn for a long time after the Ultron fiasco. Like he said to Sam, prices are skyrocketing and an army pension from the 40s doesn’t go too far. Clint suggests a Kickstarter and Nat asks if he’s ever seen a film called ‘Pretty Woman’ but after Pepper overhears the conversation, Steve gets a letter from the President himself, something about unfreezing his assets and backdating interest - “the very least that we can do for a great American hero”. 

So Steve takes a couple of days off from base, and realtors in Brooklyn jump through hoops to find him that perfect spot. No, he doesn’t want motion-activated lights or a voice-controlled coffee machine or a walk-in wardrobe or a TV screen that slides up from the end of his bed. One by one the realtors say they’ve got nothing left for him, and the city that was once his home feels unwelcoming. 

Not for the first time, he wishes Bucky was here with him. His Bucky, the one he grew up with, who knew him as well as (and sometimes better) than he knows himself. Hardwood flooring and granite counter tops, or a westwards facing window at the top of a penthouse? Steve spends a sleepless night weighing up the pros and cons of going to the cemetery and visiting his parents at the plot which he should be in by now, if he weren’t such a miracle of science and resilience. At three in the morning, he decides against the idea - if the place he grew up in doesn't feel like home anymore, then how could reconnecting with a past life and a dead life make him feel any better? 

Like he said to Tony, the man who came out of the ice isn’t the same man who went in, and maybe you can’t make a home out of the shell of who you once were. 

But it’s Brooklyn and every atom in his marvellous body sings for the city. Eventually, he finds a flat by himself in an up-and-coming part of town where the internet connection is fast and no one minds his music playing at all hours of the day. Tony says it’s bijoux and has a million and one modifications in mind to make it compatible with the mainframe at Stark HQ, but Nat takes her time looking around in silence and her hand lingers on his shoulder before she leaves.

*

James Buchanan ‘Bucky’ Barnes, aka the Winter Soldier, is wanted by four American intelligence agencies, to say nothing of the KGB and its shadowy affiliates, and he finds the answer to his problem by hiding in plain sight. A man with an iron arm attracts far more unwanted attention in the backwaters of some small African country than he does in the land of the free, the brave, the over-watched and the unobservant. 

He is a veteran of so many wars than his mind is a permanent battleground, and it’s all too easy to deflect suspicion by saying his arm is simply the latest example of reconstructive technology for wounded vets. The landlady knocks $50 off his rent when she reads more into his lined face and hardened eyes than Bucky wanted her to see, tells him this part of Brooklyn is full of young things trying to make a new start and live on their own terms. Bucky hears himself tell her that this isn’t a new start, that this is going back to the beginning; and he closes the door in her face as the panic and pain rise inside him, and his mind feels like it’s splitting in two.

The problem with coming back, he finds when he’s sat in a comfortable apartment, kindly (unknowingly) financed by what used to be SHIELD, is the realisation of change. He goes to the cemetery where his and Steve’s parents are buried and finds nothing there to help, and the puddles on the sidewalk become mirrors he’d rather not face but can’t break. Some part of him thought that maybe Steve would feel the same tug, the same irrational desire to return to the city that was home to them both. 

The hot water scalds the twisted flesh on his shoulder, where man becomes machine, and in a city filled with bearded men, his disguise goes unnoticed. Someone, somewhere, has Benny Goodman on repeat and at night, music slips through the cracks like nothing else can. 

*

Steve pulls on the thread that Nat warned him against and follows whispers to Kosovo, to Bucharest, to Geneva, but always comes back for the Avengers. Maria pulls in favours, Nat gets info in questionable ways, and Sam keeps him sane, forcing him to baseball games and stopping Brooklyn from pulling him under.

Bucky has only himself, and being back in Brooklyn only makes that feel worse.

*

By luck, Sam hears about a vet in Brooklyn who doesn’t want to come to the Association meetings, a vet with a funny arm and a snarl for anyone who pries. By luck, Bucky hears a whisper about an all-round American boy in number 32 who must be a broker to live in that kind of apartment, coming in at all sorts of odd hours with all sorts of cuts that never scar. By luck, Steve hears number 12 whining to number 4 about the homeless-looking guy in the apartment opposite who pays $50 less rent. Brooklyn, at the heart of it all as it always was. 

But luck has its limits and Bucky spends weeks considering his options. He has followed the Captain into fire fights and Nazi hideouts, disobeyed orders and dragged his limp body out of the river, but confrontation requires a different kind of courage, and heroism has not been required of him for so many years.

*

It’s late in the evening and the bottle of vodka is almost empty and weary desperation has replaced the hollowness in his eyes. He sways a little on the threshold. There is no going back from this - this is settling on one side of a line and it grates against all of his nomadic instincts. His fist clenches and his arm raises and he knocks three times on the door. Adrenaline floods his system. The latch clicks and the door creaks open and Bucky’s voice is something between a growl and a cry.

“The end of the line,” he says. “I’ve found it.”


End file.
